The Need for Sua Sponte Judicial Review Laws For Pro Se Litigants’ Lawsuits

One way or another, my brothers found out about my mother’s death about a year after she died.  In May, 2013 they immediately began to harass cemetery directory Jim Davis of Elm Grove Cemetery to intimidate him into telling them where our parents were buried.  Not one of my brothers even knew where our parents were buried, which by itself I believe speaks volumes about how estranged they were from both my father and mother.  Elm Grove Cemetery director Jim Davis assured me repeatedly that he would not give my brothers that information and that he would pursue police action against them if they kept harassing or threatening him.

In late spring, 2013 cemetery director Jim Davis gave us permission to mount a security camera at my parents’ gravesite due to persistent harassment from my brothers and concerns that my husband and I had and that the cemetery director Davis told us he also had that my brothers would commit vandalism in the cemetery.  Cemetery director Davis gave us permission to mount the security camera aimed at my parents’ gravesite.  Cemetery director Davis also told us he mounted a security camera at his residence located on the Elm Grove Cemetery grounds and he told me it was solely because of the alarm caused by my brothers.  At one point the cemetery director issued the following letter to my brothers (since I only had my brother Ken Parks’ current address, his letters to my other three brothers were returned as undeliverable):

I received a call from cemetery director Jim Davis in July, 2013 in which he informed me that one of my brothers had entered the cemetery grounds, tried to attack him in front of his child, and threatened to sue him unless he told him where our mother’s gravesite is located.  I asked him if he called the police and he said he had but he was uncertain about filing a police report.  I asked him why he would call me to tell me what one of my brothers did to him in front of his child if he wasn’t going to pursue charges against my brother since I couldn’t do anything to stop my brothers.  I told him that especially because he lived on the Elm Grove Cemetery grounds he needed to file a police report for arrest against that brother or he would experience more problems from my brothers against him, his family and against the cemetery.  He promised me he would file a police report, but when I called the police about what the cemetery director told me in his phone call to me the police informed me cemetery director Jim Davis had not requested to file a police report against my brother, so they called him for his account of what happened.

The following police report demonstrates that one of my other brothers harassed cemetery Jim Davis director and that initially a no trespass order was issued against that brother.  This brother also has a long history of filing meritless, abusive pro se lawsuits (threat of lawsuit is mentioned in the police report below), including having filed a pro se lawsuit against our mother in retaliation for the justifiable protective order she got against him just prior to his release from a New Hampshire prison.  In the following police report, this brother deceitfully gave to the police my deceased mother’s former address as his current address (the same house address that in 2013 my brother Ken “Pastor Max” Parks had apparently vandalized and where he had been ordered in early 2014 to stop trespassing and harassing the new owners of my mother’s former house and my mother’s former neighbors).

Immediately after being threatened with lawsuit by one of my brothers cemetery director Davis breached his contractual duties to the written rules and regulations of Elm Grove Cemetery Association to keep the cemetery safe from trespassers and anyone unwanted in the cemetery, and he breached his verbal promise to me based on the cemetery association’s written rules and regulations by informing one of my brothers where our parents’ gravesite was located and allowing them entrance into the cemetery.  Cemetery director Jim Davis “caved in” to my brother(s)’ threats of lawsuit and told one of my brothers, who had the no-trespassing order issued against him, where our parents’ gravesite is.  Consequently years of predictable harassment by my brothers ensued.  Since that time, my brother Ken “Pastor Max” Parks, his wife Joni Parks and his other brothers have repeatedly shown disrespect to me, to our parents’ gravesite, and to cemetery director Davis where my parents are buried.

Cemetery director Jim Davis requested several times throughout the following years that I keep him informed of any time I believed my brothers would be in Connecticut or be at our parents’ gravesite, and I followed through on his request.  He verbally told both my husband and me over many years’ time that he did not want any of my brothers in Elm Grove Cemetery, in contradiction to what the 2013 police report stated.  The police verbally told me that cemetery director Davis kept giving them conflicting accounts of what he wanted, telling them at times he did not want my brothers trespassing in the cemetery and then telling them he “changed his mind.”  The captain of the police department told me this was frustrating for the police officers.  The impression my husband and I received consistently from cemetery director Jim Davis was that he was fearful that my brothers singly or together would file one of their pro se lawsuits against him.

During my brother Ken “Pastor Max” Parks’ Connecticut 2015 pro se lawsuit against us he traveled from Georgia to Connecticut for hearings, and while he was in Connecticut for hearings he went to the Elm Grove Cemetery.  The cemetery security camera shows that he removed respectful items I had placed at my parents’ gravesite when I visited Connecticut prior to the hearings (I never attended hearings due to safety concerns).  My brother Ken “Pastor Max” Parks also placed disrespectful objects at both my parents’ stone monument and at my mother’s VA marker.  I continued to make cemetery director Davis and the police aware of these problems.  I was told the police left messages with my brother Ken “Pastor Max” Parks telling him to stop disrespecting my parents’ gravesite.  I also informed cemetery director Davis when the security camera photos showed strange men loitering around my parents’ gravesite, such as around Mother’s Day and one month after my mother’s May 2^nd birthday at all hours of the day and night.  In one set of photos a man is seen throughout much of the afternoon repeatedly urinating on a tree right near where my mother is buried.  Cemetery director Davis told us he also suspected my brother Ken “Pastor Max” Parks of inciting these men to loiter around my parents’ gravesite night and day, and he told us he consequently gave my brother Ken “Pastor Max” Parks a phone call strongly warning him against inciting people to loiter around my parents’ gravesite or anywhere else in Elm Grove Cemetery.  The loitering incidents stopped after cemetery director Davis told us he called my brother.

I followed all cemetery director Davis’ instructions and requests to keep him notified of whenever I knew or suspected that my brothers would be in Elm Grove Cemetery.  Cemetery director Davis also initiated calls to me to inform me of continued unwanted contact from my brothers.  But after years of my brothers’ harassment and their apparent threats of lawsuit against cemetery director Davis, he repeatedly failed to carry through on his assurances to me to keep them out of Elm Grove Cemetery and by doing so cemetery director Davis continued to breach his contractual duties to safeguard the cemetery according to Elm Grove Cemetery Association’s written rules and regulations regarding refusing anyone at their discretion from entering the cemetery, and by failing to keep his promises and assurances to me to keep my brothers out of the cemetery.

In the fall of 2018 my brother Ken “Pastor Max” Parks was outed by people on Facebook for running a ministry “scam” (he is on at least Facebook and Spreely).  He immediately posted on his public Facebook pages his false accusations against my husband and me claiming that we had contacted Facebook and spread lies about him on Facebook, resulting in his “ministries” donations page being shut down by Facebook.  Again, we’re not on Facebook and we did not contact Facebook – but we are very grateful to other people taking seriously the deceitful and predatory actions of my brother Ken “Pastor Max” Parks and for reporting his suspected fraud to Facebook (are they also being stalked, harassed, defamed, threatened with police action or pro se lawsuits, or actually had lawsuits filed against them pro se by my brother Ken “Pastor Max” Parks?).  Immediately after this happened – and just prior to the Washington County, TN judge ruling to dismiss my brother’s fourth pro se lawsuit against us and issuing a judgment and injunction against him – I got a call from cemetery director Jim Davis telling me that he “had to” remove the security camera, claiming that three different people complained about it.  I reminded him that as recently as May, 2017 he and the police had told my husband and me that they wanted the security camera to stay mounted because of ongoing problems with my brothers.  I reminded cemetery director Davis that both he and the police told me they believed the security camera offered good security in light of the long and persistent history of my brothers’ disturbing behavior and valid concerns of my brothers possibly committing vandalism against my parents’ gravesite.  I told cemetery director Davis that a lot of cemeteries have security cameras, especially in historic cemeteries such as Elm Grove Cemetery where my parents are buried.  I expressed my concerns that taking down the camera was setting him and us up for escalated problems from my brothers.  I also told cemetery director Davis that the timing was suspicious so I pressed him on this.  I asked him if the three people he told me complained about the camera were related to each other.   He admitted that they were not.  I asked him if the three people had loved ones who had recently died.  He told me that the loved ones of all of the supposed three people had died some time before, even years before.  Cemetery director Davis then told me that one of the people had picnics on their son’s gravesite.  I told him that since 2013 my husband and I never saw any evidence of that on our security camera footage.  I then commented that I found it very odd that all three people, all independent of each other, all of a sudden complained about a security camera that had been mounted there since 2013.

I asked cemetery director Jim Davis a few times in this phone call that he had initiated if my brother Ken Parks had called him or if any of my brothers had called him.  He claimed they hadn’t.  I updated him on the current court proceedings against my brother in Tennessee (as he had asked me to do if there were any police or court actions against any of my brothers), and I told him that since the ruling was going to hit Ken hard that my husband and I anticipated that any one of them or all of them might go on a rampage in the cemetery.  I told him that the injunction would order Ken to no longer be able file his pro se lawsuits so that not only we would be protected but everyone would be protected from his abusive lawsuits.  I suggested, as I had in previous years, that he contact the cemetery association’s attorney and look into protective orders against my brothers.  He again insisted he shared my concerns about my brother’s actions and he told me he would finally speak to the cemetery association’s attorney and that he would call me back to update me on what the attorney advised.

I waited, and I waited for cemetery director Jim Davis to call me back as he had promised he would do.  I finally got a call from him, and he told me I should be getting something in the mail from the attorney.  I waited again.

After that call it became apparent that cemetery director Jim Davis outright lied to me not only when he told me that my brother Ken “Pastor Max” Parks, or any of my three other brothers, had not contacted him, and it was also apparent that there were no three other people who all independently of each other complained at the same time about the security camera.  As events developed, it seems quite obvious that my brother Ken “Pastor Max” Parks, and possibly my other brothers, contacted cemetery director Davis and apparently somehow “convinced” him to take down the security camera he had given us permission to mount at my parents’ gravesite since 2013.  I believe my brother Ken “Pastor Max” Parks, and possibly my other brothers, threatened more adamantly to file pro se lawsuits against cemetery director Davis and may have also alarmed him by making defamatory and false statements about my husband and me, such as referring to us yet again as “wanted criminals,” “domestic terrorists,” and claiming falsely to have “won!” all the lawsuits against us.

Shortly after cemetery director Davis called me the second time after he had removed the security camera, our friend who was monitoring the camera for us and mailing us the camera card, picked up our camera with the camera card from cemetery director Davis.  During the first phone call cemetery director Davis made to me to inform me he had taken down the camera I told him the name of our friend who would pick up the camera and camera card from him.  I also explained that this friend lived in another area of Connecticut that was not near the cemetery so due to his work schedule it would be about a week or so before he could pick up the camera and camera card.  After our friend picked up the camera and camera card from  cemetery director Davis our friend also checked over my parents’ gravesite for any evidence of vandalism or more disrespectful items left there by any of my brothers.  What he found was $2.16 left at my parents’ stone monument.  Our friend’s address begins with 216.

During this time in 2018 my husband and I knew Ken had traveled from Georgia to Connecticut for court hearings against him and his wife Joni Parks due to their vexatious litigation and conspiracy actions against us in the 2015 meritless, abusive pro se lawsuit he filed against us that was dismissed with prejudice.  When we received in the mail the camera and camera card our friend sent to us we witnessed that the security camera photos showed my brother Ken “Pastor Max” Parks, his wife Joni Parks, and my oldest brother “visiting” Elm Grove Cemetery.  We also noticed the $2.16 placed at my parents’ gravesite in apparent reference to my brother Ken knowing the name and address of our friend who monitored our security camera.  We reasonably believe that cemetery director Jim Davis has been either intimidated or bamboozled (or both) by my brother(s)’ lies about my husband and me, and we also reasonably conclude that cemetery director Davis likely told my brother Ken “Pastor Max” Parks the name of our friend and possibly where he lived.   We cannot fathom any other way that my brother Ken could have gotten our friend’s name and known at least the name of the town where our friend lives and/or do an online search and find the street address of our friend unless cemetery director Jim Davis had given Ken the name and most likely the address of our friend.

I continued to wait for Elm Grove Cemetery Association’s attorney to mail me a letter.  I finally left a voice mail message with cemetery director Davis to inform him of what we had witnessed with the $2.16 left at my parents’ gravesite, and I also informed him that I had not received anything from the attorney and to please return my call with an update.

Immediately after I left the voice mail message with cemetery director Davis I received a call from Elm Grove Cemetery Association’s attorney.  He told me he had already sent me a letter, but that it had been returned undeliverable.  I asked him what address he used to mail the letter.  The cemetery association’s attorney told me he mailed the letter to our old P.O. Box in Connecticut where we hadn’t lived since September, 2013.  I told the attorney that I had previously told cemetery director Jim Davis that my husband and I had been living in Tennessee since 2013, and that there was no excuse for cemetery director Davis to have given Elm Grove Cemetery Association’s attorney our old out-of-date Connecticut mailing address.

I gave the cemetery association’s attorney our Tennessee address and thereafter I finally received the letter.  Although the outside of the envelope was addressed to me in particular, the enclosed letter was not addressed to me or to my brothers or to anyone in particular. The unaddressed letter from cemetery director Jim Davis informed the recipient that he no longer wanted the recipient to contact him.  I then called the Elm Grove Cemetery Association’s attorney about this bizarre, unprovoked letter, and told him this was the very opposite of what cemetery director Davis had told me verbally in the last two phone calls that he initiated with me a few months before.  I then cleared up the many lies told about me and my husband, citing documentation, that apparently originated from my brother Ken Parks, apparently originated from my other brothers, and apparently originated from cemetery director Jim Davis.  In two separate phone calls I made to the cemetery association’s attorney he apologized profusely for all the problems related to cemetery director Davis’ actions.  I told him I would appreciate getting those apologies in writing from both him and from the cemetery director.  Those written apologies were never received.

My husband and I believe this rude, unprovoked, and unprofessional behavior by cemetery director Jim Davis and Elm Grove Cemetery Association’s attorney – and cemetery director Davis’ breach of contract as stated in the copy of the no-trespass letter he sent to my brother(s) and as stated on Elm Grove Cemetery Association’s own website regarding violators of cemetery rules, such as my brothers have demonstrated to be – seems to have been deliberately provoked by my brother Ken “Pastor Max” Parks and possibly by my other brothers.  It seems very likely that cemetery director Davis was intimidated by one or more of my brothers’ threats to file baseless pro se lawsuits against him and consequently he “caved in” to their demands.  There is simply no excuse for cemetery director Jim Davis’ behavior and his breach of contract.  I described my situation to other cemetery directors in various states, without mentioning the name of the cemetery director nor the name or location of the cemetery where my parents are buried.  Every single cemetery director I spoke to told me they believed the cemetery director of the cemetery where my parents are buried has acted in an unprofessional and unethical manner and has indeed breached his contractual duties.  Every cemetery director I spoke to also told me they have experience getting their no-trespassing wishes enforced by the police and the courts, and that they therefore would not tolerate any trespass from my brothers and they would seek prosecution of my brothers for trespassing.  Some of the cemetery directors I spoke to told us they also rely upon security cameras placed in their cemeteries so as to discourage trespassing and vandalism, and ensure safety and respect for those buried in the cemetery and for those who tend to the gravesites of their loved ones.

As a result of what I and others reasonably believe is cemetery director Jim Davis’ unethical and unprofessional behavior, our Connecticut attorney and I contacted him and Elm Grove Cemetery Association’s attorney in writing four separate times — from December, 2018 to May, 2019 — requesting that cemetery director Davis provide me with certified proof of my ownership of my parents’ gravesite, assurances that I would be notified of any further attempts by my brothers to try to lay claim to owning or having any control over my parents’ gravesite, and a written apology for cemetery director Davis’ unprofessional and unjustified behavior (again, Elm Grove Cemetery Association’s attorney apologized verbally to me multiple times in two separate December, 2018 phone calls).  Finally, after the fourth attempt (the second attempt by our attorney) at trying to get cooperation from cemetery director Davis and the cemetery association’s attorney, we received from cemetery director Davis the documentation we lawfully requested.   Although cemetery director Jim Davis did not apologize for his behavior he did finally send documentation of records dated in 2012 (the year of my mother’s death) stating that my brothers and their descendants have no legal claim to our parents’ gravesite.

This whole incident with cemetery director Jim Davis illustrates the extent of damage and intimidation that stalkers who habitually file abusive, meritless pro se lawsuits, especially those stalkers and abusive litigants with religious cult motivations, can inflict upon their victims.

Yet another outrageous lie that my brother Ken “Pastor Max” repeats in his court filings is that he claims that because I own my parents’ gravesite in Connecticut that such ownership places me in Connecticut court jurisdiction.  In reality and by law, my ownership of a relative’s gravesite in Connecticut (or anywhere else) does not place me in that state’s court jurisdiction since I do not reside at my parents’ gravesite, nor do I derive any financial gain or benefit from my ownership of my parents’ gravesite.